When I the Starry Courses Know
by Oparu
Summary: Set during Night. An exhausted, void-worn Kathryn Janeway must negotiate with the Borg Queen when she offers Voyager a way home.   Contains themes of depression.


_for S, with infinite gratitude for your patience._

_=====/\=====_

In the dream, she floated. She's had that type of dream before, where she soared through space as if she were _Voyager_. Sometimes she was beside the ship or above it in the richness of space. She was surrounded by stars, by light and hope and then - then came the darkness.

Space is dark. She has seen it go so black that she has wondered if she were blind, yet this was blacker still. There are no words for this kind of black. This was the absence of all light, not only in the present, but in all of time. Nothing had ever touched this place and she was in it, trapped in the blackness thicker than amber, never-seeing, never-seen; inexistent.

Kathryn opened her eyes to the enduring blackness of the void outside her window and for a moment outside of time, she was devoured by that sense of emptiness. There was nothing, truly nothing, outside of Voyager in this void and there was nothing left inside of her to fill it.

She was empty, dark as if she's never had light, like the void.

Her hand slid down her stomach, slick with sweat, and dove between her legs. Her fingers dipped inside just long enough to wet themselves before she rubbed them angrily over her clit, torturing the nerves in harsh circles until the racing of her heart was only orgasm, not terror. Panting with vacant release, she lay naked beneath the clinging sheet. The void was soft and warm in her dream but she cherished the sweat because it was uncomfortable.

It was real, like the ache in her belly. Kathryn left the bed a wreck and stumbled into the sonic shower. There was no need to conserve power with everything running at full strength but she was in and out in a few minutes. The sonic shower took off the sweat and cleansed her hair but there was no pleasure in it. She was clean because it was required, not because she enjoyed it. Like eating, there's no joy in any of it. She ate the way she would fill a coolant tank, with her rumbling intestines the blinking alarm.

She replicated another pot of coffee and drank that out of habit, perhaps tomorrow she would try hot water instead. The caffeine didn't jolt her heart any more than her necessary orgasms. There was a veil over her experiences that nothing pierced. Everything was vague and soft and she was behind some kind of forcefield that prevents any of it from touching her.

Kathryn read purposeless reports until her coffee was cold, then she paced her room, counting the laps until she had walked over a kilometre. Her body has to be maintained, like the replicator and the PADDs she read. She ran through the list of exercises with her weights in the corner. If she turned away from the windows, she could almost imagine space as it should be, full of light and stars. She counted out the reps, clinging to the variable weight barbells with sweaty hands.

Another shower, and then a few minutes tick past. Kathryn read her PADD and circled her quarters. Her hamstrings are sore and grew more insistent as she walked. The pulling discomfort of the overused muscle tingled like running her hand along a forcefield. The sensation was fleeting and faded, just like everything else.

Chakotay came and went. She ate again. There was always more reading, more walking, and she glanced again at the weights. She could work ahead on the next muscle group, but that would break the sequence. What would she do tomorrow? Somehow, agonisingly, the day passed and she crawled back into bed.

She doesn't sleep at first: she never does. Staring up at the blackness drained the life out of her but it takes at least an hour to bore herself to sleep. Even then, she jolted awake just before surrendering. She'll have the dream again and the rush of fear before she succumbed was the most she's felt all day.

Tonight there were voices. There was no sound in space, yet she heard voices. They rumble through her like footsteps far across the sand but she felt the words through all the grains of her being. She vibrated with the sound, becoming the instrument that resonates the voices into being. She was still in the black, but the darkness meant nothing because she was a creature of sound.

Her hands toyed with her breasts, coaxing the nipples before she followed the sound of the voices with her fingers and plays herself like the piano she never learned. Her slick fingers roll over her needy clit before she opened her eyes.

"Captain to the bridge."

Kathryn stared at the calm, grey ceiling, waiting to be sure that what she heard was no hallucination. Her quarters were dark and the space outside her window seemed to swallow up what little light she had. All black, a perpetual night that sank into her and wrapped abyssal fingers around what the Delta Quadrant had left of her heart. The light on her comm panel blinked obnoxiously, the little amber light was completely drowned in red alert.

That was real.

She let the adrenaline drag her down to the dizzying pit of an orgasm that leaves her hungry.

Kathryn left her bed on autopilot, grabbing her jacket on her way towards the door as the klaxxon started to scream around her. She didn't deserve the black and red armour of her uniform, she belonged in the grey: muted and powerless. She put her jacket on because arriving on the bridge without it would have demoralised the crew. They believed in her; what right did she have to dissuade them of the idea, however foolish.

She had just enough time to run her hands under the cleanser before she headed to the bridge. The wetness was gone, but she can smell the phantom trace of her empty arousal on her fingers as she tugged her jacket collar into place. Still wet enough that her panties stick to her swollen labia, if she had the chance she'd stop the turbolift and finish herself off. With red alert blaring around her it was not an option but she swivelled her hips all the same.

She had been absent from the bridge for months, yet the viewscreen captivated the attention of everyone more than her return. She meant to survey the bridge to remind herself it was hers. She'd plotted, steeling herself on the turbolift ride up to the bridge. Kathryn had a ship to lead, and though they were ones who suffered for it, she would continue her pantomime. Her gaze swept in an arc meant to encompass the bridge, but stopped on the viewscreen.

A Borg sphere hung in the void, like a cybernetic pearl resting in a black velvet display case.

"Report."

"They came out of transwarp a moment ago," Chakotay said, vacating her chair.

"Their shield are lowered," Tuvok added. "Weapon systems are powered down."

Harry's surprise crackled in his voice but he held it back. "They are hailing."

Kathryn stood before her chair. "I thought I'd be so happy to see anything that wasn't the void." She glanced down and caught Chakotay's grim little smile.

"Me too."

"On screen."

The pearl vanished into the familiar green and black of the Borg interior. She couldn't just say hello, could she?

"We are the Borg."

"They're not exactly subtle." Tom's voice was just above a whisper; Chakotay hushed him with a look.

"I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship _Voyager_."

The sharp sound of the Borg transporter cut through the bridge instead of a reply. A moment later, the Queen stood before her, calm and infinitely confident. She studied Kathryn serenely, moving her head slightly to take in the bridge. There was none of Seven's mechanical sharpness of motion; the Queen moved like a dancer before the performance taking in her audience.

Standing eye-to-eye with the embodiment of the most dangerous force in the galaxy, Kathryn didn't have to look up. Most of the time, when she faced down the latest alien who threatened her ship and her crew, she had to raise her eyes. She was accustomed to that, putting her hands on her hips, straightening her back and glaring for all it was worth. It had gotten her through more than a few disputes.

Maybe that was why she wore heels or perhaps that was why her posture was always so perfect. Except here, it meant nothing. Now she stared eye-to-eye and the Queen didn't find her intimidating in the slightest. Nor did she engage in any of the behaviour Kathryn was familiar with. There was no posturing as she knew it. The Queen's dark eyes just stared into hers, then she smiled. Her pink lips curled upwards, dangerous, promising she knew something Kathryn didn't.

A few hundred light years ago, Kathryn would have fought her, now it was all she could do to hold her ground and not collapse, exhausted back into her chair and allow them all to be assimilated just to end the silence.

"What are you doing here?" Kathryn couldn't even force any threat into her voice. She was glad. She hated to even admit the thought existed, but she was glad to see the Borg because they were something. The endless black void had been all around them for weeks, months… long enough that Kathryn was forgetting what stars looked like. This void was space, real space, emptiness: inexistence. Which was exactly what she feared she wanted.

"We would like to negotiate." The Queen held her hands at her sides, seemingly without threat, then Kathryn noticed that her crew had pulled in around them, surrounding them both.

She sent Tuvok back to his station with a look. Chakotay stood just behind the Queen, sidearm in his hand. Tom had his too. Kathryn was willing to bet she'd be dead before any of them had time to shoot the Queen, if she was even vulnerable to phaser fire.

Weeks in self-inflicted isolation and all of them still jumped to protect her. Kathryn waved her hand sharply, ordering them all back.

"Negotiate?"

The Queen found Kathryn's reticence amusing, that or she always smiled when surrounded by her enemies. Either way, it was more disheartening than the void.

"We believe that is the humanoid term for the trading of resources." The Queen looked from Harry to Tuvok and brought her smile back to Kathryn. "Developing compromises that suit both parties."

Pointing towards her ready room, Kathryn nodded curtly. "I am happy to hear what you wish to trade, of course."

"You will be."

Something in her voice sent a creeping sensation up the back up Kathryn's neck, as if she'd stepped into a hot bath. Before anyone could grab her and tell her how incredibly insane she'd have to be to walk into her ready room with she-who-was-Borg, she followed her in.

* * *

><p>The Queen didn't sit in the chair across from Kathryn's desk. In fact, other than when Seven sat to eat, Kathryn wasn't sure she'd ever seen a Borg (or ex-Borg) sit down. She should have anticipated that and retracted the hand she had extended towards the chair.<p>

"I don't suppose you would like something to drink?" How was one polite to the Borg? How long was it going to be until Kathryn woke up and realised this was all another dream?

"Do you have something to recommend, Captain?"

The Queen ran her hand along the edge of Kathryn's desk, then reached for her silver pot of coffee. It was empty, of course, and Chakotay had left PADDs on her desk. For some reason, KAthryn hated letting the Queen see any disorder in her office, as if it made her weak.

"Picard liked tea," the Queen said, stroking the silver lovingly. "Many species enjoy organic matter boiled or infused with water. I can't say that I've tried many with this tongue, but I know what they taste like. I believe I like coffee."

"And you drink?"

"I can drink and eat as you do, Captain. My body will process your inefficient nutrients into usable molecules." For some reason, the Queen found this too amusing and smiled. "That is one of the gifts of your species, isn't it? Your crude successes."

"I like to call it spunk."

"Spunk." The Queen ran the word over her tongue, tilting her head as she searched for a definition.

"Are you searching the whole Borg thesaurus?"

"I am the Borg."

"Some would say that's a contradiction."

"They are wrong. I am the Borg."

Kathryn grinned a little, having that kind of certainty must have made life interesting. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been interested in a conversation. She ordered coffee from the replicator and set it down in front of the Queen of the Borg.

"Sugar?"

"No."

"Good."

Lifting her metal cup, the Queen studied the more delicate porcelain ones Kathryn kept on a nearby table. "This one is functional, yet you keep the others for emotional reasons. They are weak and delicate, yet you prefer them. This splits your focus. It is only a matter of time before you are defeated because you hold to delicate things."

"You can still drink coffee. Isn't digestion a delicate thing?" Kathryn sipped hers, trying not to pay an inordinate amount of attention to the Queen's lips on the rim of her cup.

"Drones do not eat."

"So you're special?"

"I am the Borg."

"You might have mentioned that."

"Most Borg do not speak, I do. Most Borg do not eat, I do. I am the one who is many. Their minds are mine, and I am theirs."

The coffee was hot, but the Queen drank it quickly, faster than Kathryn. Maybe she was less sensitive to heat. Maybe her coffee was cold to her. What was her body temperature? What would her skin feel like? Was it warmer than hers? As warm as a Borg vessel?

"So you drink coffee and the Collective tastes it?"

"A crude idea, but you may believe it so if that is all your limited mind allows."

Kathryn leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk and setting down her coffee. "So, what do you want?"

"So cold, Captain. Let me explain what I offer you, before you demand to know my terms."

Once, at the Academy, she'd put down half a year's rations in a pool game with a very rich, very confidant Andorian. She'd won, mostly by luck, but she'd never forgotten that thrill of risking everything. It only got better as she rose in rank and found more powerful opponents to challenge. Risk was the worst out here, where there was no backup, no turning back and nothing between the greatest evils the galaxy had to offer and her crew but her.

It ran her adrenals raw, took her sleep and left her with so burned that nothing got through the ash.

"You want to go home. We have the technology to send you there. One trip through a transwarp conduit and you will be back in your solar system."

"Never to trouble you again?"

"We are Borg. We adapt. If the Federation is more powerful than us, we can learn to live in peace, since you do not wish perfection-"

"We don't."

The Queen tilted her head, always aristocratic. "You are a foolish species."

"Yes, but not because of that."

"We will return your ship to your home system. We will also sign a treaty of non-aggression with your Federation."

Kathryn nearly dropped her coffee into her lap. "The Borg don't sign treaties."

"We adapt."

"Why adapt to this? Why behave as we do?"

The Queen reached across the desk, steadying Kathryn's coffee in her hand. "Because our way has not been effective. We have lost many ships and many drones to the conflict with your Federation. It is unacceptable. You believe in peace, we offer that to you. We will adapt to your terms."

"But other races? Those in the Delta Quadrant?"

The Queen brushed off the question. "Those who are worthy will be assimilated. We will sign a treaty with the Federation and your imperfect allies. All others shall be one with the Borg."

Kathryn set down her coffee, resting her fingers on the desk to keep them from shaking. "Unacceptable."

"Then die. Here, now, in the middle of this void. Your crew will not see their home until they visit the Earth as drones." The Queen stood, rising evenly from her chair as if lifted by a tractor beam.

"Wait."

"I have given you my terms."

"And I have to think them over." What choice was this? Home or death? The exhausting, never-ending marathon through the Delta Quadrant could be over. Her crew could see their families. They would go free.

"You may think. As a gesture of good faith, I will remain on your ship."

Kathryn walked into the corner of her desk in surprise. "You?"

"I am the Borg."

"What makes you think I want you to stay on my ship?"

Evil should not know how to smile. Kathryn couldn't place how unsettled she was every time the Queen's lips moved. Why were they red? Why, when everything else in her face was dark and alien, did her lips look so human?

"You believe you could make me leave?"

The veiled threat ran down her back like ice water. Could she make her leave the ship? Part of Kathryn wanted to insist that she could, it was her ship and everyone got the hell off it when she wanted them to. Without words, Kathryn glared at her, staring down the Queen as if she could stare down the whole Borg Collective.

"Perhaps."

"You are overly optimistic."

Kathryn paused, her hand almost to her commbadge. If the Queen wanted to wait, she could wait in the brig. "Humans often are."

The Queen lifted her hand, hovering a centimetre from touching Kathryn's arm. "Before you summon your drones, Captain, you haven't asked what I want."

"What you want?" She hadn't asked. She'd been too surprised by the Queen's offer to think about what it would cost.

"That is the way of a bargain, isn't it? I offer to adapt to your rules-"

Kathryn couldn't let her finish. "We will not adapt to yours."

"You are impatient and foolish." The Queen tilted her head, studying Kathryn with her empty eyes. "In exchange for our peace, the Federation will provide us with an ambassador, an individual who will further assist our adaptation."

"You want an ambassador?"

Taking a step forward, the Queen was close enough that Kathryn could see the minute pulses in the tubes crowing her head. The hand almost on Kathryn's arm moved to her chin, lighting brushing warm fingers across her skin.

"I want you, Captain Kathryn Janeway."

"No."

The featherlight touch of the Queen's fingers radiated heat through Kathryn's skin.

"Your life for your ship. Your mind for your people. It will not be without reward, Captain. We can travel where your ships cannot. We have seen fluidic space, stellar clusters that would tear your ship to shreds of metal; the beginnings and the ends of the galaxy. We know no limits. We know no fear. No Starfleet command, orders, or hierarchy. We are one."

She ought to have pulled back, fled the touch of the Queen like the hand of the devil. Kathryn stood her ground: maybe because she wanted the Queen to know she wasn't afraid, maybe she was afraid to pull back, or maybe she liked the hand on her chin and the air of authority that held her captivated.

"And you are alone."

"We are Borg." The Queen's eyes narrowed.

Kathryn yanked her head away, tapping her commbadge. "Tuvok, our guest needs an escort to the brig."

"It is a fair exchange, Captain."

"It's a devil's bargain."

Tuvok entered, but the Queen took no notice. She leaned close, brushing an impossibly warm cheek against Kathryn's.

_"And do I ask, wherefore my heart falters, oppressed with unknown needs? Why some inexplicable smart all movement of my life impedes?"_

Kathryn felt the words more than she heard them. They sank through her skin like nanites, threatening to tear her apart. How many souls were inside of the Queen? How many Starfleet officers she had known were trapped in the Borg? She wanted to tell herself it was fear. That the Queen was a monster parroting the words of those she'd devoured, but fear wasn't warm. Fear didn't pool in her gut like embers at the end of a summer bonfire.

Tuvok made the connection, raising an eyebrow. "Geothe, I believe."

"Locutus does love his poetry." The Queen slipped past Kathryn, leading Tuvok to the brig as if he were an honour guard instead of her jailor.

The door hissed shut behind them, leaving Kathryn alone with her thoughts. She turned towards her desk and stopped, catching the edge with both hands. Peace with the Borg in exchange for her life. She'd give her life for her crew in a heartbeat, the Queen knew her there, but the Queen didn't only know her. She knew Picard, de Soto, Admiral Hanson and the rest of the captains she'd taken at Wolf Three-Five-Nine, not to mention the thousands of alien captains she must have taken throughout the galaxy.

Her life for her crew. If she saw them safely home, what other purpose did she have? What was left in her but the journey? She'd hollowed herself out long before today, why deprive the Queen of the shell if she bought peace with it?

She'd trusted the Borg once and she'd betrayed them. If she was with the Queen, if she was one with her-

Was that what she wanted? Not the Borg, but the Queen herself? Did it matter what she wanted if her crew went home? She released her grip on the desk and watched the sweat from her hands fade from the metal into the air.

_Home_.

She returned to the bridge, waving off questions as her crew assaulted her at once. "The Queen and I have negotiations to finish."

"Captain-" Chakotay stood between her and the turbolift, blocking her way.

"Chakotay, what do you want me to do? If we beat that sphere, she'll send another. If we kill her, she'll come back. She's offering us a way home-" She paused, watching the word ripple through the bridge like a stone in a lake. "What choice do I have but to listen to her? I'm just going to hear what she was to say. Evacuate the deck and keep an eye on my life signs, if I die, you vent the whole deck out into space."

Chakotay stood aside, doubt etched in his face. Harry had hope, he always did. Seven's face was still, but Tom knew something. Maybe he knew a liar when he saw one.

"We could go home, Chakotay. Now, with our ship intact, without losing any more lives." She touched his shoulder, wondering if he'd hold her back if he knew. Perhaps they'd let her go.

The turbolift was a prison, a journey to the depths of hell to confront the demon there. She passed no one in the corridor, everyone was at their duty stations. Four security guards stood outside the entrance to the brig, and all carried phaser rifles. Inside were two more, and Tuvok himself stood at the controls.

The Queen's cell was dark, perhaps she had insisted, and the room was hot and wet like the inside of a Borg ship.

"I thought out guest might be more comfortable."

Kathryn nodded to Tuvok. If he looked at her long enough, he'd see what she was about to do. Did he know her well enough to let her go?

"Leave us, everyone."

He nodded, stiff as duranium. "We will be outside."

"No, Tuvok, clear the deck." Her uniform was already sticking to her skin in the heat. Kathryn reached for the zipper and tugged it down slightly. "I'll be fine."

"We will be outside the airlock on the upper deck." The repetition was a promise and she loved him for it. The security guards vanished and Kathryn stood in front of the forcefield.

The Queen waited inside, peaceful in the blue light. She watched Kathryn wipe fresh sweat from her forehead, following Kathryn's hand. "You have considered my offer."

"My ship goes home, unharmed. The Federation and all of its allies will be left alone."

"And you will come with me."

Was that what she'd been waiting for? Someone more powerful to come out of the darkness and take away her burdens? Someone to tell her that life was precious and that she'd done the right thing bringing her crew so far.

The forcefield crackled with the Queen only centimetres away. Kathryn walked to the controls, ready to free her, but the Queen walked through as if the forcefield were nothing but a trick of the light. She caught Kathryn's shoulders with surprising strength and backed her hard into the wall of the brig. Kathryn's heart raced in her chest, lungs gasping for new breath.

"Yes." The word was half-buried in her chest, but the Queen heard it.

A thigh slipped between Kathryn's, parting her legs. Fingers caught her cheek, turning her head so her neck was bare. Kathryn tensed in despair, realising belatedly that death came in an instant at the hands of the Borg. The wall was cold behind her, but the Queen was warm, warmer still then the heavy heat in the air. She should struggle? Did she have anything left to fight with? Had she already failed for wanting to surrender? Would the nanites be warm like the Queen or cold as death when they crawled through her veins?

While she waited for death, none came. No agony assaulted her nerves and instead heat blossomed on her neck. The Queen's mouth was warm, molten like the stars Kathryn had lost in the void. She shuddered, balling her fingers into a fist as the Queen held one arm up against the wall. The other reached for something, anything, and found the Queen's hip.

She was soft. Instead of the hard, alien feeling of body armour, Kathryn felt flesh. Maybe she was dreaming.

Heat and the lips that brought it came up to hers.

No more poetry, just a searing kiss that burned the last of her resolve. With one hand still caught against the wall like a manacle held it, Kathryn used the other to run up the Queen's back, tracing the armour along her spine and the hint of bone beneath. The skin above the collar of her suit was smooth and damp, deliciously alien. The Queen's free hand caught one of her breasts, crushing it to her chest before tearing open the zipper of her uniform jacket. When Kathryn struggled again for her hand, the Queen kissed her, this time holding her lip between her teeth just enough to sting.

"Impatient."

Kathryn's response was a moan. What could she have said? Begging wouldn't have gotten her anything. The heat of her mouth worked her way down Kathryn's chest, leaving marks on her grey undershirt. Kathryn's own mouth was warm and that heat crept back, crawling across the roof of her mouth, up into her skull, as if orgasm could sneak in through her lips. For an instant, barely the time it took for her synapses to fire in recognition, she knew what she was and what was happening within her. Then she was one. The serenade of voices, like the coarse whispers of a million grains of sand, won her ears from the inside out. Kathryn's trousers opened beneath skilled hands. Her own hand dropped to her side, reaching for the Queen to have something to grasp. She surrendered to her own wetness, her gasp of loneliness and need and her hands dug into the blackness of the Queen's body. She knew exactly how to touch herself, and the hunger was back. The ravenous hunger she'd ignored for years found purchase in the growing rumble of voices, like lightning finding a home in the dark clouds above. She was owned, desperate and lost, yet found and secure.

Safe on the brink of death, she fought back. The air was less hot now. Her lungs breathed easier. The hand that teased her breast through her bra was no longer much stronger than her own. She reached for the naked skin just above the suit, running fingertips down towards the swell of the Queen's breast. The black suit didn't move, but Kathryn's fingers went through as if it was not there. The armour moved around her hand like dark water, nanites moving out of the way on a molecular level to allow her hand access to the flesh beneath.

Flesh so much like her own that Kathryn found the familiar roughness of a nipple and thumbed it before she squeezed the breast and slid her hand down. She ran her hand up and down the flesh of the Queen's stomach, watching the suit move aside and return, flowing around her hand.

The Queen kissed her again, this time needy, pleading with her tongue instead of antagonising. She wanted to be touched. Kathryn could feel the ache as a mirror of her own spiralling need. The Queen was wet and tight around her fingers, and the hands on her only sped in response, turning her knees to water. There's no clit, at least, not one she recognised but the flesh responded to her touch. Kathryn clung to the Queen, who was as solid as the wall, yet flesh like her. Memories of sex, of a thousand positions she could never take and organs that were not hers, yet felt as her own washed over her like the sudden onslaught of summer rain. Release was hers, the Queen's, then billions, even trillions of minds, vibrated in unison.

Orgasm radiated through her and the Borg, one sensation across the multitude of minds growing in the strength of merged memories, souls lost within the ether with just enough left to cry out in ecstasy. The Queen's eyes were black beneath the gold. A different black than a void because this had promise. There incredible power in the strength of uncounted cubes and of trillions of drones.

The tears on her face were forgotten in the wet air, left to become part of the humidity. Kathryn's half-shredded, sweat drenched uniform fell to the deck as she stood away from the wall. The Queen rested her hands on Kathryn's chest and the black ran out from her fingers and covered Kathryn's flesh. It is both her and not, like the rest of the Borg. She could hear them, humming in the background, like the sound of her own blood, but her mind was still hers.

"We are the Borg." It wasn't a question. She was as much the Queen's as the Queen was hers. Consort and equal, the missing part of the collective whole.

The blood on her lip was salty until the Queen licked it away.

"_Voyager_ must return."

"Then return it." The Queen waited for Kathryn to search her mind and find the way.

Transwarp controls were as much part of her as her feet. Kathryn opened the transwarp conduit as if it was as simple as opening her mouth. It hovered around the ship, ready to pull them in. She reached down, lifting the commbadge as if finding a treasure from a forgotten era in an old ruin.

She squeezed it enough to activate it. "Good journey, _Voyager_."

Dropped, the little metal device thudded against the heap of her uniform. Kathryn reached for the Queen, with her hand and her mind. They would go home.

_Voyager's_ shields were up when they beamed out. Tractor beams and turning the warp field against the transwarp conduit were good ideas, but Kathryn and the Queen send them on their way without more than a few thoughts. Her former crew will be safe.

The green light of the sphere brought welcome instead of fear. She was home, nestled in the minds of all that are her, and not her. Pain, loss and hatred faded into the beauty of the one. Kathryn was their peace. She was the one who surrendered, the one who loved many so the many could know love.

The Queen smiled, brushing across Kathryn's mind with hope and contentment. The Borg's search had ended. Their need, their endless search for perfection would be different. The innocent will no longer fall to the Borg, but the feuding Kazon and the heartless Dominion, the Malon, Devore and Vidiians: they will know the peace of the Borg.

Now the predators would run. Their emptiness would be consumed to feed the relentless tide of the Borg. Kathryn should care. She cared once for innocence and forgiveness. They would leave the subject races their worlds, let them dream of rebuilding while the Borg consume their ships and weapons. Evolution took the dominant species and cleared the way for others. It was the way.

They are the comet that ended the dinosaurs, the last Breen age of heat, the desertification of Vulcan and all the ends that made new beginnings. It will be a new galaxy and they'll shape it, together. Twin devils in the darkness; finally whole.


End file.
